This season, several friends and family members are applying to PhD programs in Computer Science, thus I have been discussing with people about this topic quite a lot. As, I went through the PhD application process less than a year, I want to note down a few thoughts while they are still fresh in my memory. This is not an advice blog. There is no single way to get into a great PhD program. There is no single definition of a great PhD program. Everyone’s journey is different, and all journeys are valid. If you’re reading this, you might be going through the application cycle or thinking about a PhD. I hope you find my two cents helpful!

Cheers.

Why PhD / Grad School?

I’ve met people who did a PhD for all sorts of reasons - some wanted to become professors, others aimed to join a top industry research lab or build a startup around their research. I also met people who chose a PhD without a “dream or career” goal in mind, but they had still thought about the risks and rewards. Whatever your reason, it’s valid as long as you understand your own goals and hold the commitment involved.

I thought about these three questions when making my decision:

1. Upper Bound: Can I do what I want to do without a PhD? Will five years in a PhD help me reach goals I couldn’t otherwise achieve in the same timeframe?

   For instance, if you want to be a professor, the answer is usually yes—you need a PhD. But if you’re aiming for a research role in industry, there might be other ways to get there without a PhD. Eg: I’ve met folks who are able to transfer into research PA as a research engineer at Google after years of experience.

1. Lower Bound: What if things don’t go as planned during the PhD?

   Are you prepared to handle the worst-case scenario, like switching advisors, switching research direction, or even leaving the program? For some people, losing a few years of industry-level income and work experience can be a significant downside. Make sure you’re aware of the opportunity costs and sunk costs.

2. “Expected Value”: can I live through the day to day as a PhD student?

   PhD student can be challenging because of the opportunity costs (trade-offs) and the lifestyle. You’ll face rejection, stress, confusion, and slow progress on research. On the flip side, you gain the freedom to explore new ideas, develop deep expertise, and learn resilience. “a PhD degree shows that you can handle tough situtation” by Ray from my conversation with him when I was deciding if I want to pursue a PhD.

One thing that helped me in determining if PhD is right for me is to talk to A LOT of people who has went through this journey, or part of the journey. Roughly 50 1-1s with people during summer of 2023.

Ultimately, I decided I wanted a PhD because:

1. I enjoy research and want intellectual freedom.
2. I enjoy the experience of doing a PhD itself. When I was a Master’s student at Akshitha’s Lab, I had a honour to experience the PhD lifestyle. I had a desk at the office (which most Master’s students at CMU don’t get), where I got to hangout with folks at the lab and got to get the first hand experience of how it is like being a PhD student, which I really enjoy.
3. I thrieve for advantures.

How to prepare for PhD application?

I might not be the best person to answer this question. I decided to apply for a PhD at the end of summer 2023 and applied in the same fall. I didn’t have much time to prepare specifically for the application process. Thankfully, I already had some research experiences and received a lot of help from my Master’s advisor, Akshitha, and other friends in the lab (Jaylen, Edwin, Veronica, Sara).

Being a direct beneficiary of mentorship, I hope to pass down the help I have gotten to people out there.

Before Application Cycle:

Doing a research internship is a great way to: 1. get research experience / LoC, but 2. more importantly, the first hand experience of doing research so one can know if research is a good fit for themselves.

If you are an undergrad without research experience, don’t hesitate to reach out to PhD students and faculties. The worse case is that you don’t get a reply or a rejection, but you’ll be “rejected” if you don’t even reach out from the first place. I was a very shy person so I understand that it takes a lot of courage to even take the first step.

One thing that I did not know before PhD application is that many labs takes undergraduate research assistant both fulltime and parttime. It is a thing.

You don’t need to attend the same university where you do research. Many labs welcome undergrads from other schools if you have the right skills or interests.

During Application Cycle:

How to select PI / School?

One thing I did is that I made a execel sheet listing out all the insitutes, departments and research lab / PI that I wish to apply to. Doing it takes a lot of time, but it was very helpful for me to:

1. find out what people are interested in?
2. what are the latest trend in the field of research that I want to conduct
3. learning if a PI/lab is a great fit
4. doing such research also help me shape my research direction & statement.

Try to research online about the lab. Some red flags are easy to spot, but more requires you to talk to people. Try reaching out to PhD students at the lab you are interested in to find out more about the latest status of the lab, and whether if the lab is a great fit for you.

Know your order of importance when picking PhD program, it is human nature / undergrad mindset to pick university based on ranking or prestige. But PhD program is very different, a great advisor fit is far more important than the insitute’s ranking. So don’t limit yourself when looking for labs and PI to top ranking universities only.

SoP

Checkout my other blog on PhD SoP. But one resource that helped me greatly is: cs-sop.

The content is the most important thing. But besides that - START EARLY!, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

I completed my first draft of SoP by mid/end of October, and I spend the rest of the time polishing my statements. I asked a lot of people to read my statements. And I max out all the writing center appointment (one/week) that I can possibly get at CMU. Even then, I had to make last minuet changes on my statement an hour before the application deadline.

In this process, it will become more obvious how to connect the experiences you have, and what you want to do going forward. The processing of telling your story to other is a great way for yourself to organize your thoughts.

Interview Preparation

In preparation of the interviews, I created a slide that contains the following content:

• Past experiences
• Detailed description on selected projects
• Research I want to conduct going forward

This will be helpful both for faculty who interview you, and yourself during the interview. Be ready to conduct the interview with and without the slides. And you can ask the interviewers if they prefer slides or not at the beginning of the interview.

Interview Questions:

Different advisors ask for different questions, but the typical ones are:

1. tell me about your work
2. why you want to do a PhD?
3. what questions do you have for me?
4. what research do you want to do going forward? The interviews I conducted are all quite expected, I didn’t get any outrages interview questions.

After getting offers:

• ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS! TOUGH/SPICY/HARD and SPECIFIC QUESTIONS!
• TALK TO EVERY SINGLE PERSON AT THE LAB!

you are about to make a long term committement, you are about to work with these people in the next five years. It is your one chance to find out if the lab is a great fit for you or not before accepting the offer.

During my undergrad, I had minimum to no interaction with people who are doing PhD, considering doing a PhD, or had a PhD (recent PhD grad, PhD student, grad student, or senior undergrad, or close interaction with professor). The idea of doing a PhD also never cross my mind until I met Akshitha during my Master’s. I hope this post can also serve the outreach purpose for folks out there who doesn’t have such exposure. Discliamer: I did my undergrad at UofT, one of the top research universities. There should be (and probably were) a lot of opportunities for undergraduate research, but still, I was not exposed to research research as I was not actively looking for such opportunity, so you can imagine how hard it would be for student from under-represented university to get exposure to research as an undergrad.

Best.